Category: Articles/Reviews

As promised, here is the list of Criterion streaming titles (designated separately from FilmStruck titles, for some reason) that will disappear from streaming tomorrow when FilmStruck shuts down. (nostalgia) ...And the Pursuit of Happiness ...But Film is My Mistress 13 Days in France 16 Days of Glory 2 or 3 Things I Know About …

Share this:

Like this:

Hi all, Taking a brief time-out from covering specific films to do a quick obscure film public service announcement. As many of you know, Criterion's streaming service FilmStruck (which featured many rare, out of print films) is going under in three days. As always, I found out about this amazing product too late. So now …

Stories abound in Hollywood of bitter screenwriters who toiled for years to land a deal, only to watch their vision destroyed by a clashing director or meddling producer. How refreshing, then, to hear a story about a film shoot that was pure joy for screenwriter and director alike. "Caught," a 1996 erotic thriller starring Edward …

Like this:

"To be quick about it, she's terrible. Her smile...communicates no amusement, warmth, intelligence or interest. We watch the smile as we would watch the opening of a garage door...it's a minor mechanical feat." -Vincent Canby, chief New York Times critic, on Suzanne Somers' performance in the 1980 flop "Nothing Personal." Before the mid-to-late 1960s, foul …

Like this:

Most colossal flops are the types of bad movies you can't wait to take down. You can't fathom the chutzpah of the filmmakers. So misguided was the script, acting and/or storyline, you wonder what the hell they were thinking, how it got the "go" from anyone in any sort of power. Whole books have been …

Like this:

An earlier Hidden Films entry discussed "On the Make," a 1989 disco drama that had a brief theatrical run and then more or less disappeared. But that film's debuting co-writer and producer, Fred Carpenter, has stayed in the game ever since, eventually moving on to directing. He continuously shoots, on the cheap, in Long Island--where …

"The Black Monk," a loose adaptation of Anton Chekhov's short story by Newark-based husband-and-wife filmmakers Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno, is a beautifully shot, erudite, heartbreaking tale of misbegotten love. Set in Jerome's native Staten Island, the film is small in scale but consistently rich in themes. Chekhov's spartan 1894 work tells of a scholar …

Like this:

"They Ought to Be on DVD" is a recurring Hidden Films series dedicated to movies that received a New York City theatrical run—and thus a New York Times review—but no subsequent release in ancillary markets. Through interviews with cast and crew, we attempt to answer why. "I'm the first filmmaker to make a movie about …

Like this:

I'm starting a new section on this blog called "New York Times Slights," honoring filmmakers whose movies--most of them small-scale--were unfairly given short shrift by the legendary paper. Bad reviews come and go, but vague bad reviews are another thing altogether. To date, the paper's most dismissive/snobbish reviews came from the late Vincent Canby, who …

Like this:

Hi readers! This was an exciting year for several reasons (Hidden Films Twitter account up and running again, readership up, a few good profiles and reviews posted) but, as was the case last year, there was an unfortunate dearth of posts. This is something I absolutely intend to avoid in 2016. The perfectionist in me …